A PA L A C H I C O L A B AY

Apalachicola’s Gibson Inn

as it looked in earlier times

From the union of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers at the Georgia-Florida state line, the mighty
Apalachicola River flows unimpeded for about 100 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. At the river’s
mouth lies Apalachicola Bay and Florida’s “Forgotten Coast,” known for world-class seafood and
seemingly endless miles of pristine beaches, shallow estuaries, and protected forests.

In Apalachicola Bay, author Kevin McCarthy takes us through the history of the bay’s sites and
communities. Come along and discover

m The cities and communities of Franklin County—Apalachicola, Carrabelle, Eastpoint,

Lanark, and St. James Island—which have retained the charm of old Florida as they adapt to
changing times

m The area’s barrier islands—St. Vincent, St. George, Dog Island—which are true ecological
treasures and harbor exotic Sambar deer, endangered red wolves, 300-pound loggerhead turtles,
as well as more than 200 bird species and 400 plant species

m The Apalachicola River, Apalachicola National Forest, and Apalachicola National Estuary
Research Reserve—rich natural environments that have made it possible for people to live

m
around the bay since as long as 10,000 years ago and which are remarkably well-preserved
today

m Sites such as Fort Gadsden, Cape St. George lighthouse, and Crooked River lighthouse, as
well as Apalachicola’s historic homes and buildings, which reflect the area’s rich history as a
port, military-training area, and a center for cotton-packing, logging, and the harvesting of sea

Kevin M. McCarthy
products

With vibrant color paintings by William Trotter, Apalachicola Bay will let you savor some authen-
tic Florida history and see what makes this “Forgotten Coast” memorable for residents and visitors
alike.
KEVIN M. MCCARTHY is a professor of English and Florida Studies at the University of Florida. He

APALACHICOLA BAY
and William L. Trotter have collaborated on a number of Pineapple Press books, including Aviation
in Florida, Lighthouses of Ireland, Georgia’s Lighthouses and Historic Sites, Thirty Florida
Shipwrecks, and Twenty Florida Pirates.

PINEAPPLE PRESS, INC.

SARASOTA, FLORIDA
Kevin M. McCarthy
Cover paintings by William L. Trotter
Cover design by Shé Heaton $18.95 Illustrations by William L. Trotter
 I.
APALACHICOLA
BAY
m

A FTER OTHER SECTIONS OF FLORIDA CAME UP WITH catchy

descriptions such as “The First Coast,” “The Space
Coast,” and “The Treasure Coast,” someone came up with
“The Forgotten Coast” to describe the Apalachicola Bay section
of the Panhandle. The term “forgotten” refers more to an aspect
that was neglected, rather than found and then lost, in vacation-
ers’ mad rush for the glitz of South Florida or the miles of pris-
tine beaches toward Pensacola.
The bay has the best of several worlds: four barrier islands,
a rich estuary, several picturesque towns, world-class beaches,
racial harmony, and a history that has produced two important
scientists and a town that prides itself on having restored its ele-
gant houses. That’s the good news; the bad news is the potential
for serious harm to the bay from forces far away, for example,
in Georgia and Alabama, and the threat that large landowners
can build new communities that might not preserve the county’s
natural beauty.

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 Apalachicola Bay m

Franklin County, the home of Apalachicola Bay, is one of

Florida’s smallest in terms of population, with only 9,829 inhab-
itants. This figure represents a decrease from the 11,057 report-
ed in the 2000 census, which had caused it to rank 64 out of 68
Florida counties. Although the county gained 2,090 residents in
the 1980s, all of the increase came from migration into the area;
the deaths of the residents actually exceeded the births by 94
(1,211 deaths to 1,117 births). In fact, the county gained only
3,992 residents over the past 30 years or about 111 people a
month, whereas demographers note that the state as a whole
gained about 900 people a day in that same span of time.
Franklin County’s population per square mile (21) is one of the
lowest in the state, which has 296 per square mile. The county
has one of the lowest percentages of residents aged seventeen
and under (17.99 percent) compared with the state as a whole
(22.81 percent). Most of the people—7,420 residents or 67 per-
cent of the population—live outside the two incorporated towns
of Apalachicola and Carrabelle.
The Florida Legislative Council formed Franklin County out
of Washington County on February 8, 1832 and named it after
statesman-inventor Benjamin Franklin. The land area of the
county (over 348,800 acres or about 545 square miles) is less
than one percent of the state as a whole, and one-fourth of
Franklin County (the Apalachicola National Forest and St.
Vincent National Wildlife Refuge) is federally owned. The coun-
ty’s widest point, from near Sumatra to Cape St. George, stretch-
es about twenty-eight miles; its longest point, from Indian Pass
to Bald Point in the east, is about fifty-four miles.
The area has a moderate climate thanks to the nearby Gulf
of Mexico. In summer (June to September), the average temper-
ature is 80º Fahrenheit because of the breezes from the Gulf and
the prevalence of cumulus clouds, which often shade the land
without obscuring the sun. In winter, the temperature rises to a
manageable 56º Fahrenheit.
Come with us, then, on a tour of the Forgotten Coast, a
place that struggles to maintain a working environment with
preservation of its past, to grow slowly and keep its natural
beauty.

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 1.
S T. V I N C E N T I S L A N D

“I’m gonna stay/Along the Ap-a-la-chi-co-la-Bay”

—Bing Crosby, “Apalachicola, Florida” (a song)

I MAGINE A BARRIER ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA that has

no human residents, only lots of sea turtles, waterfowl, rare
Asian Sambar deer, even some red wolves. The island is quite
large (twelve thousand square acres), lies just off the coast where
very expensive homes face the Gulf of Mexico, and has the
potential of becoming full of roads and high-rises and fast-food
restaurants. The possibility is alarming. But then you learn that
the owner of the island is the U.S. Department of the Interior.
You exhale, realizing that it will remain in its pristine form for-
ever. You have there, in a nutshell, a description of St. Vincent
Island.
The United States has over five hundred natural refuges,
managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and encompass-
ing more than ninety million acres of wildlife habitat. St. Vincent
National Wildlife Refuge at the western edge of Apalachicola
Bay is one of those sites, having been purchased by the Nature
Conservancy in 1968, then sold to the Fish and Wildlife Service

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Since 1990, scientists have used the isolated St. Vincent’s Island to breed endangered red wolves.
 St. Vincent Island

of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages it as a

protected national wildlife refuge.
Water is all around: the Gulf of Mexico to the south and
west, St. Vincent Sound to the north, and Apalachicola Bay to
the east. The island even has freshwater lakes, which is rare on
small Florida islands. Indian Pass, off the northwestern tip, sep-
arates the island from the mainland, which is just several hun-
dred yards away but is reachable only by boat. The water there,
called St. Vincent Sound, is very shallow (averaging about four
feet in depth) and has many oyster beds. Several hundred yards
also separate the island from Little St. George Island at the
southeast at West Pass. The mainland shore just to the north of
Saint Vincent Island is owned by St. Joe Company and is most-
ly undeveloped, although the company may develop it in the
next few decades.
The sea level there and elsewhere in Florida has fluctuated
dramatically over the past five thousand years. Thousands of
years ago, when large glaciers covered the earth and contained
much of the world’s water supply, the level of the oceans was as
low as 350 feet lower than today. The coastline of Florida,
including the Apalachicola Bay area, extended far out into the
Gulf of Mexico. About nine thousand years ago, as the climate
of the earth warmed up and the glaciers started to melt, the
coastline of Florida began to recede to where it is today.
If you were to look at St. Vincent Island from a plane, you’d
see a triangle-shaped structure four miles wide at the eastern end
and nine miles long, with eighty miles of sand roads running
east to west and fourteen miles of beaches along the eastern and
southern shores. The topography ranges from freshwater lakes
and swamps on the eastern end to dry pine forests on the west-
ern end. The climate is mild, with the annual rainfall averaging
about fifty-seven inches. Scientists have identified several dis-
tinct habitat types on the island: wetlands, which consist of
freshwater lakes, streams, and tidal marsh; dunes with live oak
and other trees; cabbage palm stands; and four different slash-
pine communities.
This barrier island is old, dating back over thirty-five hun-
dred years, although geologists estimate the age of parts of the

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 Apalachicola Bay m

island to be forty-four hundred years, which would make it one

of the oldest barrier islands in Florida. Native Americans lived
there two thousand years ago, as indicated by pottery shards. In
the early seventeenth century, Franciscan friars working with
Apalachee tribes named the island after St. Vincent, a Spanish
martyr of the fourth century. After those Native Americans died
off from European diseases and battles over the next hundred
years, Creeks and Seminoles entered Florida and lived on the
island. In 1811, the Native Americans sold the island to the trad-
ing house of Panton, Leslie and Company, later known as John
Forbes and Company, which sold it to the Carnochan and
Mitchel Mercantile House in 1828.
In 1858, the Apalachicola Land Company, which had
acquired the island, sold it to local lawyer Robert Floyd. In
1868, George Hatch, a banker, former mayor of Cincinnati,
Ohio, and husband of local resident Elizabeth Wefing, bought
the island at a public auction for $3,000 and lived there with his
family for a time. His grave, located near West Pass Channel and
marked with a small, white-cypress fence and stones, is the only
marked grave on the island.
From 1878 until 1888, ships that drew no more than eleven
feet of water used West Pass, which, at a natural depth of forty
to fifty feet, is the deepest pass into the bay today. Shipping out
lumber was a profitable business at that time, but the need to use
larger ships necessitated the dredging of East Pass to the west of
Dog Island.
In 1908, Ray Pierce, a wealthy doctor from Buffalo, New
York who had made a fortune from the manufacture of patent
medicines and the Pierce Arrow car, bought the island. He built
cottages and thirty miles of roads, spent $60,000 importing
game animals from Europe, and stayed there with his family and
friends in the winter months. During the 1920s, ranchers raised
beef cattle on the island and sold them to markets in nearby
Apalachicola. In the 1940s, oyster growers leased some of the
land.
In 1948, the Loomis brothers of New York City and Virginia
bought the island for $140,000 and imported exotic animals
such as black bucks, elands (the largest living antelope), ring-

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